


the best damn women's basketball player in ohio valley history.

by Jugdish



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, brief mention of gay slurs, cj is a lesbian, compulsory heterosexuality is a bitch, passing reference to hate crime against gay man, so catch the tea on that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-29 22:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10145921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jugdish/pseuds/Jugdish
Summary: CJ is thirteen years old when her parents sign her up for ballroom dance class and she grudgingly complies.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a wrote this a year ago and just made minor edits so... quality may be lacking but just really felt like i wanted to put it out there. cj is a lesbian and... #knowthat

CJ is thirteen years old when her parents sign her up for ballroom dance class and she grudgingly complies. At 5'8" she's tall and gangly and she doesn't quite fit anywhere. She is the tallest girl in a class short on boys so the instructor pairs her up with another girl every class without fail. She doesn't mind--the girls are kind to her for the most part and she likes inhaling the faint scent of their fruity shampoos as they glide, and sometimes stumble, along the floor.  

Her first class, CJ is paired with Julie. CJ reverently places her hands on the girl's waist, as if she might fracture before her eyes if she held her too tight. CJ lifts her eyes up from the girl's waist to her eyes, cataloguing the details of her body, the slopes of her curves, finally settling on her face. Her skin is almost translucent and her eyes a milky blue. CJ looks upon the girl's straight red hair with envy--she had never been able to love her own curls.

Julie places her hands on CJ's shoulders and a knot begins to settle at the pit of her stomach. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and she is suddenly conscious of the heat that rose to her cheeks.

Dance class quickly makes Monday her favorite day of the week.

When CJ is a sophomore, she makes the West Dayton High School basketball team. The court is like a second home to her. She loves the rhythmic sound of the ball against the gym floor as she dribbles. The satisfaction of winning an important game matches nothing else. Sometimes she finds herself more nervous about impressing the captain than she is before the actual games.

In the locker room CJ pretends to adjust her ponytail in the bathroom mirror, but really she steals glances of the girls behind her. Somehow it feels wrong to look at them stripped down to their sports bras and underwear. The perverse guilt eats away at her, but she brushes it off.

In college CJ hears whispers about girls who like girls and boys who like boys. She hears all kinds of euphemisms, "I heard she plays for the other team," and the classic "friend of Dorothy." Men throw around slurs, "dyke" or "faggot" and girls whisper "lesbian" as if it is a dirty word. CJ wonders what it's like being on the receiving end of those remarks. Her heart pounds just thinking of being singled out like that.

CJ goes to a party and kisses a girl. They're both drunk, but the girl's lips are soft so she doesn't mind. CJ wonders if the lurch in her stomach is from the buzz of the alcohol or the whistles of encouragement from nearby guys. She replays the kiss in her head for the rest of the night but eventually dismisses it. She tells herself that she had too much booze or that she just wanted attention.

On the campaign trail, Liz Bartlet is a force to be reckoned with. CJ tries to reign her in, explains what is good for her father and what raises questions they don't want to be asked, but Liz just flashes her smiles and says "Please..." and CJ finds herself giving in. As Liz walks off with an air of satisfaction, Leo says to CJ in wonder and irritation, "You just can't say no to her, can you?" Liz Bartlet has CJ wrapped around her little finger.

When Lowell Lydell died, he was forced to say Hail Marys as he was beaten to death. CJ privately mourns his death and tortures herself with the thought that the same thing could happen in her hometown. She resents Sam and Leo when they tells her to dial back her rhetoric on the crime and she vehemently advocates for a hate crime bill. CJ doesn't know where the passion comes from, but her blood boils at the thought of young gay men and women suffering, taking their own lives with no one held accountable. She vows to do everything she can to help them.

The tabloids and blogs call her a lesbian. She cares more than she would like to admit. She sets out to tell the press she isn't gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) and that it's none of their damn business and she surprises herself by telling them off. After she speaks from the heart, she realized that she  _could_  be a lesbian. It was improbable, but possible. She, until this very news cycle, never even considered the identity could apply to her. She thought the label would only be adopted by other women. The thought stays with her, in the abstract.

A woman asks CJ out on a date and CJ hesitantly accepts. It's  nothing special, but it's a milestone. She feels like her whole self, without reservations. CJ wonders if this procedural date feels so good, what it will be like with feelings involved.

CJ is forty-six years old when she realizes the tabloids got it right.

 


End file.
